If you have lost your job, you are probably thinking that you can't afford to pay for health insurance. And yet this is one of the moments when you least can afford to be without it.

It's a catch 22. Imagine how difficult it would be to have to front the money for a hospital visit at a time when you're struggling to keep up with all of your financial commitments.

Ellen Laden, from UnitedHealthcare's Golden Rule Insurance Company, has a few suggestions on how you can maintain some level of coverage even during rough economic times. The advice comes hours before the federal government's 65 percent subsidy on COBRA insurance expires. Beginning tomorrow, unemployed Americans who previously paid only 35 percent of the COBRA insurance cost, will find themselves alone with the whole bill.

COBRA insurance allows unemployed workers to pay to keep the same level of coverage they had when they were employed. A family of four would now have to pay an average of $1,100 to maintain their current insurance coverage under COBRA, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation study. This is obviously too much.

Here are a few things you can do to stay covered while you make your transition to your next job:

Short term insurance: In Pennsylvania, these kinds of plans allow you to choose between 1-11 months of coverage. You can extend it if you need to. They also offer different deductibles, which enable you to work with the price, the higher the deductible the cheaper the premium. According to Laden, a family of four living in and around Allentown (parents in their middle 30's and two children under 10) might pay $120-$556 in monthly premiums for a six month plan. Contact a local or Internet broker to compare among short term insurance providers. You may also check www.goldenrule.com.

If you have a pre-existing condition: You may qualify for the Pennsylvania high risk pool. Visit www.pafaircare.com for more information. These premiums are significantly higher. Those who qualify might purchase an individual plan for themselves and apply for a less expensive, short term plan for other family members.

1. On a recent survey, women were more likely to rank the desire to have a baby above the desire to have sex than men were. In fact men were much more likely to rate the desire to have sex higher than they were to rate their desire to have a baby. This is interesting because, unless you go the in vitro route, it takes sex to have a baby, and, as most couples know, once a baby comes into the picture, sex usually goes out of it.

2. Baby fever is contagious. The desire to have a baby is often triggered by exposure--holding or cuddling with someone else's baby, finds the same survery. Conversely, there really is a such thing as "natural birth control," too. Screaming babies and toddlers having tantrums caused couples to not want to have babies, too.

3. Roughly 83 percent of people eat at their desk, yet only 36 percent of them clean their work areas before doing so, finds an American Dietetic Association study. This is despite previous research that has found that the typical desk has 100 times more harmful bacteria than a typical kitchen and 400 times more bacteria than a toilet seat. Yep, it would be safer to eat your lunch in the bathroom than it would be to eat it at your desk. Strange, but true.

4. Listening to music is more dangerous than texting when it comes to crossing a street, finds a University of Alabama at Birmingham study. People who were talking on a phone were twice as likely to get hit as people who had no distractions. Texters were twice as likely to be hit as phone talkers, and music listeners were even more likely to get hit than anyone.

Does it seem to be common sense to you that if you get seriously injured on a weeknight that your chance of dying is greater than if you are seriously injured during the day?

What about if you are in a bad accident on a weekend versus a weekday? How much worse are your chances of surviving?

It turns out, they're not worse at all.

A new study out of the University of Pennsylvania debunks the conventional wisdom that nights or weekends put you at greater risk for death following a serious injury. According to the study, trauma patients brought to emergency departments were no more likely to die on weeknights than they were on weekdays. Further, those who sustained traumatic injuries on weekends actually were more likely to surivve than those injured on weekdays.

Researchers based their findings on a retrospective review of more than 90,000 cases over five years.

No one wants to see anyone get hurt, but at least these findings show that on average, hospitals won't short-change you if you're injured on "off-peak" times.

You have been relying on your prostate for a good portion of your reproductive needs. The small walnut-shaped gland produces the seminal fluid that nourishes and transports sperm.It is about time you payed it the common courtesy of learning about its health. A group of Urologist is about to make it easy for you.

Urology Specialists of the Lehigh Valley will be hosting free prostate screenings Saturday September 10 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at 5018 Medical Center Circle in Allentown. While no appointment is necessary, online pre-registration is available at www.uslv.net.

The group of doctors did the free screenings last year and discovered four cases of prostate cancer. This year, they are hoping to attract more people and prevent these cancers from becoming deadly. Prostate cancer is almost always easily treatable when caught early.

Darryl Dawkins, head coach of men's basketball at Lehigh Carbon Community College, is among the local leaders helping to raise awareness about the importance of taking measures to detect prostate cancer in time.

The disease is as common as breast cancer, but during its early stages, prostate cancer does not present any symptoms. In its later stages, however, the symptoms can include trouble urinating, discomfort in the pelvic area and bone pain. Blood in the urine and semen can also ensue over time.

The doctors will also offer free educational seminars on a variety of topics such as enlarged prostate, kidney stones, incontinence and sexual dysfunction, in addition to the conference on prostate cancer.

Men over the age of 50 have a greater risk of developing the disease. This is a great opportunity to address an uncomfortable, but important topic. Take a moment to detect any problems before they become life-threatening.

Oh, the miracle of childbirth. Nine months of anticipation, hours of strenuous labor and then the ineffable beauty of a new life.

Turns out the magic doesn't end there. About 10 minutes after that first memorable scream from your child, the placenta emerges. It has kept the baby healthy and fed throughout its growth and, according to some cultures, it can also help the mother to stimulate breast milk production and avoid postpartum depression.

In traditional chinese medicine, the placenta is dried and cooked with herbs to treat infertility and breastfeeding problems. African countries such as Egypt, Ghana and Morocco also recognize its value. Indonesia and the Czech Republic do so as well. According to a recent story in New York Magazine, the trend is picking up in the United States and you can now find people who specialize in preparing this eccentric dish. Some even turn the precious tissues into dried, placenta capsules, that the mother can take with the hope of preventing postpartum depression, as you can see in a story by TIME magazine. But science is still not behind it.

It is not a new idea, but it is shocking. In the United States, the trend began during the 1970's, spoused by people living in communes. Part of the rationale for consuming placenta is the fact that most mammals eat it and humans are mammals too. In fact, the first time I saw a placenta was in the mouth of my pet Sisi, who devoured it after cleaning her puppies. I never had the desire to learn much more about it until my wife told me that her family has a tradition of keeping the placenta and planting a tree with it.

We were the first ones to request the placenta at the 100-year-old hospital Perea in Puerto Rico where my daughter was born. When my son was born, a year and a half later, our midwife kindly brought the placenta close to us and explained how it helped to nourish our baby. I must admit that I felt something special, but then again I had just seen my baby being born so everything seemed beautiful at that time.

My wife experienced postpartum depression briefly after our daughter was born. I wonder if we could have prevented it by turning her placenta into dozens of happy pills. Then again, few things can cheer you up more than looking at a good, healthy tree.

If you haven't looked at the weather forecast for the next few days, don't. It'll just depress you.

Rain. Rain. And really heavy rain. And even heavier rain.

It got me thinking about people -- like me -- who tend to suffer a range of physiological ills when it's rainy. For instance, I tend to want to sleep all day. I also feel sinus pressure and get headaches. I wondered, "Is this just all in my head? Or is something going on here?"

So I did a little sleuthing. As it turns out, there's a name for it all. It's called "weather sensitivity." And there are several medical studies on the topic. One, done in Germany, found that roughly 19 percent of those surveyed thought the weather affected their health "to a strong degree" and another 35 percent thought the weather had "some influence" on their health. In Canada the percentages were even higher. Coldness, dampness, and rain all affected their health for the worse, leading to everything from migraines to lethargy, to joint pain to insomnia. For some people, the symptoms were so severe, they called in sick from work.

It's not completely clear why rainy weather makes so many people so miserable. It could be from the drop in barometric pressure. It could simply be a consequence of being stuck indoors. Or it could be from lack of sunlight and how it affects circadian rhythms.

With school doors about to open, we've tried to keep readers reminded about the need to keep their kids' vaccinations up-to-date. See here, here and here.

For that matter, we're not too far from flu season either, so a flu shot should be the order of the day for all of those who can tolerate one.

What you don't need is worry that your vaccine is going to make you sick.

To back up that point, the Institute of Medicine, an independent academy that operates outside the reach of the federal government, has issued a report and its findings are definitive. "An analysis of more than 1,000 research articles concluded that few health problems are caused by or clearly associated with vaccines," it said in the report issued today.

it did say that some side effects are linked to vaccines, such as fainting or seizures, but they are rare.

"In addition," the report said, "the evidence shows there are no links between immunization and some serious conditions that have raised concerns, including Type 1 diabetes and autism."

So get your shots and feel good that not only are you going to be protected, but you also won't be spreading disease to someone else.

Are you unemployed? If you're not covered by a spouse or family member's coverage plan, chances are you have skipped some health care or left prescriptions unfilled.

That's the primary finding in a report by the Commonwealth Fund, which reported that 72 percent of the unemployed went without health care they needed. With nearly 500,000 people in Pennsylvania unemployed, according to federal government statistics, that would translate to 360,000 of your neighbors.

Besides those who had to do without needed health care, many were forced to make difficult choices that hurt their family finances, the Commonwealth Fund found. According to the report, 40 percent of adults who lost their job-based benefits and became uninsured were forced into making difficult financial tradeoffs in the past year because of medical bills. Among that group, 32 percent expended all their savings; 27 percent could not pay for basics like food, heat or rent; 14 percent took on credit card debt; and 9 percent took out a home mortgage or loan, it said.

And if you wondered about federal COBRA coverage, which allows the unemployed to buy the insurance that they had while working, here's more of the expected bad news: It's too expensive.

"Currently, for a majority of Americans, losing a job also means losing health insurance," said Commonwealth Fund Vice President and report co-author Sara Collins. "To make matters worse, once you are unemployed and uninsured, it's nearly impossible to afford COBRA or buy an individual policy."

For those reasons, the Commonwealth Funders are fans of the Obama Administration's health care reform law, the Affordable Care Act. "When it is fully implemented in 2014, the Affordable Care Act will usher in a new era for the unemployed, who will have a variety of options for comprehensive and affordable health insurance," Collins said.

The fund also looked favorably on federal stimulus funds, which helped offset the cost of COBRA insurance and increased the number of people who were able to keep their health coverage. With no more stimulus money, the newly unemployed are out of luck, the fund said.

What comes to mind when you think of a person with disabilities? Do you feel fear, pity or compassion? How familiar are you with their lives? How much interaction have you had with a person living with a disability?

The answers to these questions affects the way we think about this group, according to the journal of social and personal relationships. Scientists predicted that those with more knowledge and greater quantity and quality of contact with people with intellectual disabilities would have more positive attitudes toward this social group. But it turns out that quantity of interaction was not as important in forming people's view as the quality of the interaction.

Scientists are posing these questions at a time when still the quality of life for people with disabilities around the world is nowhere where it can be. They believe that if we are aware of our attitudes toward this group we can be mindful enough to include them in our social and technological development.

It has been decades since the invention of the motorized wheelchair and while we have developed weapons of amazing precision, we still don't have machines that enable people with spinal cord injuries the ability to be vertical. It was not a priority. It was the military that sparked the idea of designing an exoskeleton device that will enable paraplegics to stand up and walk. The device was originally created to help soldiers carry close to 200 pounds of equipment for long distances. Good Shepherd Rehabilitation Hospital will soon have a machine, created by Berkeley Bionics in California, that will give people with spinal cord injuries the experience of rising up and walking again. But it will likely be a decade before people will be able to own these machines like they own a wheelchair.

The world of people with intellectual disabilities is still misunderstood by the mainstream. Acknowledging it is the first step, as the study points out. It is up to us to create opportunities for these quality interactions.

TIM DARRAGH has been reporting and editing the news for 30 years, most of it at The Morning Call. For much of that time, he's been doing award-winning investigative and in-depth reporting projects. Tim created the three-year-long Change of Heart project, and wrote a series on the state's fractured food inspection system that led to widespread improvements in food safety. Meantime, that novice jogger you see plodding along the streets around Bethlehem Township? That would be Tim.